
BS, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (Biology), 2012
Biography
Jennifer conducts community-based research across physical and social science boundaries with urban growers in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. She has partnered closely with four organizations to explore the ways in which their growing practices impact (and are impacted by) human and more-than-human relationships in urban ecosystems. While the field research for this project has completed, Jennifer is coordinating monthly Community Land and Food Gatherings (funded by the Institute on the Environment's Impact Goals programs). Committed to facilitating democratic learning spaces that embody multiple knowledge systems, these Gatherings create space for partners and their communities to collaboratively make meaning from the data and imagine future equitable futures.
In her organizing work, Jennifer is the Chair of the Twin Cities Agricultural Land Trust, a co-coordinator for the FairShare Farm Community Garden in the SE Como neighborhood, and a member of Science for the People - Twin Cities.
Jennifer can be found biking to and fro, (grudgingly) running, eating ice cream for dinner, and cooking irrationally complex recipes to share with anyone who enjoys backyard potlucks or front-step food swaps.
Areas of Interest
Urban soil, Agroecology, Political ecology, Participatory research, Community-based research, Urban agriculture, Environmental justice
Select Publications
- Nicklay, Jennifer A., K. Valentine Cadieux, Mary A. Rogers, Nicolas A. Jelinski, Kat LaBine, and Gaston E. Small. "Facilitating Spaces of Urban Agroecology: a learning framework for community-university partnerships." Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 4: 143. (2020).
- Bowness, Evan, Jennifer A. Nicklay, Alex Liebman, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, and Renata Blumberg. "Navigating Urban Agroecological Research with the Social Sciences." Urban Agroecology: Interdisciplinary Research and Future Directions 23 (2020): 275.
Awards
Other Affiliations
- Consortium Student Scholar, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & Life Sciences
- Writing Consultant, Center for Writing